personal best

okay, so where did i leave off? friday at work after cycling into the office? yes...good point to pick back up. friday was a running battle with problems at work, so i was very happy for 3:30 to roll around and to get back out on the trail, shake off the week and burn some of the work week frustration. eight miles, medium effort in 80+ degree heat was just the ticket. i could feel the heat (and stopped at the water fountain to douse myself twice) and the miles from the week, and though i somewhat struggled through the run, it felt great to log the distance.

i headed home quickly, since my friend, chris (who is training to be a massage therapist) was coming over to try out what he'd learned this past week. deep tissue on the calves, pecs, deltoids, trapezius and rhomboids...heaven.

saturday was a complete rest day, and i didn't take the kayak out like i'd planned. did some light swimming, watched cycling, cleaned up the house and then went to a movie. it was just what i needed in preparation for sunday, since ken and i planned on running santiago canyon on sunday, starting at 6am in order to beat the heat (predicted at 90 degrees).

it was up early on sunday and at ken's place by 6. we drove the route, a couple tough climbs with the remainder rolling rises, and dropped some fluids on the course. we were off at 6:30, just as the sun started peeking over the local mountains. we took the first 5-6 miles very easy and just enjoyed being out running and chatting. ken had 16 to put in, so we turned around at mile eight and slowly began picking it up so that i wouldn't have much of a drop in pace to make when i hit mile 13.

i had instructions to drop to marathon pace at 13, and had planned to try to keep as close to that over the hills between 13 and 15, and then hook up with the top of the aliso creek trail and run downhill for the remaining five, where ken would meet me with the car. at 13, i was feeling quite ready to go, and i dug in as i began climbing the hills. i kept a strong 7:45 up the big climb and kept it pretty close to 7:30 all the way through mile 17. at 17 i was feeling ON and had a fun though, "my 5k pb is pretty soft (23:07) i wonder if i could beat that with the last 5k of my 20 miler..."

i put the hammer down and turned in 7:08, 7:03 and 6:40 for the last 3 miles. with the .1 time added in, i did a final 5k of 21:39, crushing my pb 5k time...after 17 miles of moderately hard hills. and the end result? 20.11 miles in 2:59:59, legs that felt AWESOME through the entire run and never even came close to bonking, and a full tank of energy for the remainder of the day.

when we got back to ken's place, his wife, stacey, had breakfast ready for us. a full plate of waffles and eggs hit the spot and gave me the fuel i needed to recover perfectly. from there, it was back home to get cleaned up and hook up with a good friend, greg, to head back into santiago canyon to spend a couple hours of photographing the area. the photography trip netted a couple decent photos, so i'll post some of what i took.

whew...long winded, and if you made it this far...um...have a cookie.